Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked: For Good” “sequel” is sitting not so pretty — or popular, sorry — on Metacritic with a score of 60, polling top critics. Amy Nicholson and Manohla Dargis, respectively at the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, reviewed the movie favorably; IndieWire’s Kate Erbland gave a cautious rating of B- (with most of her goodwill pointed toward its leads’ performances); while The New Yorker’s Justin Chang offered up an epic pan, citing “some fairly dreadful filmmaking.”
It’s rare for a movie that’s such a mixed bag with critics to ascend to the top of the Oscar heap. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are still earning rave notices for their turns as Glinda and Elphaba, here in a darker entry that tacks on at least an hour’s worth of new material ahead of the events of act two of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical.
Don’t count the actors out of the race, especially after all the goodwill the first film amassed, but reviewers have not been uniformly kind to what will obviously be a box-office sensation of a musical. Will critics even matter in this case? The audience reaction is already through the roof, and it’s projected to open to at least $150 million this weekend.
On this week’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio dive into the critical fervor around the film, which finds Glinda rising as the benevolent leader of Oz and Elphaba confronting her own demons — and relationship with Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey). Both Anne and Ryan agree that Erivo and Bailey lack a romantic spark. Are the singing chops of Erivo and Grande, who’ve embarked on another meme-catching press tour, enough to power the movie through the Oscars date of March 15?
We also discuss “Marty Supreme’s” position in the Oscar race after a series of packed screenings across New York City and Los Angeles, bringing in audience attendees from Celine Song and Nathan Fielder to Jacob Elordi and Jennifer Lawrence. On a second visit, Ryan praises the film’s energy and Timothée Chalamet’s performance, even if it’s not necessarily a movie that lives in the heart the way “One Battle After Another Does.” Anne agrees that the Best Actor Oscar is Chalamet’s to lose at this point.
We also take a look at how this week’s European Film Awards nominations, dominated by “Sentimental Value,” impact the Academy Awards race, especially with such an international voting body in 2025. Plus, Letterboxd is readying to launch a digital video store that could presage the wildly popular platform’s move into distribution.
Listen to this week’s episode of “Screen Talk” below or on your favorite podcast platform.